Unreasonable Pricing

In a country where all basic necessities come at high prices, it makes one pretty angry to know that multi-national pharmaceutical companies are treating the Filipino people like money tree. According to news report from ABS-CBN’s show, TV Patrol, medicines being sold in the country costs 1000 percent higher than in other countries. In their report, they compared the medicines being sold in India and the Philippines. Ponstan (a pain reliever drug) for instance, costs 2.50 pesos in India. In the Philippines, the same drug costs by about 25.00 pesos! Another drug, which brand name I forgot to note, costs 80 pesos here in the Philippines but costs by about eight pesos in India.

 

It is very obvious that the multi-national pharmaceutical companies, pricing are downright unreasonable. Let’s say that it is possible, due to different economic factors like dollar-peso exchange rate, taxes imposed on imported drugs, etc, that the prices of medicines in the Philippines will be higher than those being sold in India. That is possible but it is highly improbable that medicines in country will cost by 100 percent higher than those in India. These pharmaceutical companies are heartless and greedy. They want the whole world to respect the copyrights on their drugs but they are unwilling to peg the price of their medicines at reasonable price. It seems that their motto is: “Respect the copyrights but ignore the value of human lives” so that they could rake in as much money as possible.

 

Because of this alarming truth, I support the congress in initiating the Cheaper Medicines Bill so as to give the country a safety net from the greed of these pharmaceutical companies. The Cheaper Medicines Bill gives the Executive Branch the power to put a price ceiling on medicines. With power, I just hope that the president will have the political will to not to bend on the will of the pharmaceutical companies and use the bill for the benefit of the Filipino people.

 

Human welfare and human rights is higher than the copyright laws that the pharmaceutical companies hold very dearly, thus I wish that the government will help the local pharmaceutical companies in making drugs that is already present at the market, if the multi-national pharmaceutical companies do not agree to lower the price of their drugs.